Audiobus: Your virtual music studio.

What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is
an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use
your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite
synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like
GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output
for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a
synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI
keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear.
And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

I Am Beginning To Hate iSymphonic

Yes, it is unfortunately true. I love the sounds, but as an AU it has become worthless to me. Between the hanging notes and buzzing I am now only using it as an IAA (which, at least, offers full functionality) and freezing a track at a time (very slow going).
In addition, it often cause Cubasis to freeze up entirely, requiring rebooting! 😡😡😡

Is it possible the app has somehow become corrupted and requires reinstalling?
One instance works better, but two or more seems impossible.
I will contact the dev, but want some feedback from youse first.
Any tips to hurry up freezing in Cubasis?

Comments

@LinearLineman said:
Yes, it is unfortunately true. I love the sounds, but as an AU it has become worthless to me. Between the hanging notes and buzzing I am now only using it as an IAA (which, at least, offers full functionality) and freezing a track at a time (very slow going).
In addition, it often cause Cubasis to freeze up entirely, requiring rebooting! 😡😡😡

Is it possible the app has somehow become corrupted and requires reinstalling?
One instance works better, but two or more seems impossible.
I will contact the dev, but want some feedback from youse first.
Any tips to hurry up freezing in

Same issues as an AU for me in NS2. I could use maybe an instance or two but three causes the same thing...buzzing and freezing.

It's a very common compliant for all the CrudeBytes apps in DAW's.
One instance and freeze it the best approach. Probably not an option in NS2 yet.
Sampling iSymphonic into Obsidian would be required like @ScottVanZandt does.

To understand the resource limits think of iSymphonic as a "hair dryer" in this analogy
from the FAQ thread:

Q: Why are IOS DAW's so fragile? Everything crashes around me when I make my projects.
Who tests these Apps we pay so much for? Apple? The Developer? No. It's me!

A: Think of an App as an appliance like these analogous devices:

A Hairdryer (1000 Watts/10 Amps needed)
A drill (100 Watts/1 Amp needed)
Most home systems in the use allow up to 15 Amps to be pulled from a plug (power strips can have 8-10 ports) before the line draws too much current and needs to throw the breaker to prevent the wiring from melting due to heat.

2 hair dryers can't use the same power strip but you could use 14 drills (using 2 power strips into a power strip for 19 free ports)

Try using iSymphony Strings and the Perfect Piano at the same time. They crash the DAW (10 + 7 = 17 Amps. BREAKER)

Use 2 Pianos without issue but probably little else at 14 Amps

Switch to 30 Tiny Pianos... 9 Amps.

"Now why does the Perfect Piano I paid $50 for crash in my DAW and the $5 Tiny Piano work? Doesn't Apple test this crap? I want my money back."

Apple tests the breakers for AU's at 340MB - they try to help. I'm only considering one resource in my analogy. Most DAW's show CPU use but few show RAM and the interplay between RAM and CPU is exactly what the DAW is managing for you to create.

So, most DAW on IOS complaints are due to resource limits. More RAM and faster CPU's provide more resources and Apple appears to be raising the AU resource limits for newer iPads since they have 4GB's. The big dog has 6GB for $2000.

It's not a problem with IOS. It's just a boundary condition on a mobile device. Just seek a compromise with the Apps you love (understand their needs) and try not to throw the breakers and ruin your work with outages. It is a challenge worth the effort.

There are many rules to live by but these are my top 3:

Freeze heavy RAM/CPU Apps to audio early (free up RAM/CPU use)
Don't expect a project to support 10-15 AU apps (if they do it's a "Tiny Piano")
Try to Apply FX carefully to avoid wasting excess resources when they could be grouped or applied in post production.
NOTE: Many Apps are synths/FX/Sequencer combos (I'm looking at you Aparillo). They are definitely Hairdryers. More and more we're getting seduced by hairdryers. So, things will only get worse without knowledge of this limitation.

@McD, I would be fine with that if the freezes didn't a/ take so long b/stop in the middle c/add a huge tail (usually from hung notes). Living within the limitations works better. I just broke down my symphonic tone poem into a jazz trio with strings.

On the more recent Pro models there's a known cpu throttling issue in addition to the limited RAM. For large sample libs and multiple instances, even the ones streaming from disk, you're better off using a little laptop with 8/16GB RAM anyway.
But in the end there's always a limit, no matter which hardware.
If RAM isn't the limit, CPU will be limiting the number of simultaneous voices.
Nice analogy from @McD

You start to wander into the territory of orchestral composition, and even in the desktop world, these guys have the highest-spec machines in order to manage and play orchestral sample libraries with many voices.
This is what iPads are not (yet) made for.

Isymphonic has always given me fits.
So tonight I had one instance AUV with one model D and one Bassalicious2 in AUM . Air2 latest iOS. Not a glitch in an hour and a half.
Of course tomorrow it will last 2 minutes before imploding.
I try to keep my expectations low. Never disappointed that way.